42 



The Naturalist. 



paper can now say, The attitude of the great mass of religious 

 dogmatism to this new philosophy was no less than scandalous." And 

 yet there never has been a scientific man whose character and temper 

 and manner were so little calculated to exasperate opponents, or create 

 doubts about his single-mindedness, as Darwin's. Unfortunately he 

 was not the first investigator whose conclusions are now universally 

 accepted, who at the outset incurred the angry and vehement oppo- 

 sition of religious people, but surely he ought to be the last. Is it too 

 much to hope that he will be the last 1 It seems barely possible that 

 so striking an example of the tremendous mistakes into which pious 

 men may fall regarding dangers to their faith, can fail to impress them 

 with the necessity of greater caution and courage in their attitude 

 towards the explorations of the physical universe which are now going 

 on in every direction. 



It ought also to put an end to the curious attempts of which we, 

 every now and then, hear from religious bodies to make some kind of 

 treaty between religion and science, in which each shall lay down 

 certain limits beyond which it will agree not to go. All such schemes 

 are based on the assumption which was applied to Darwinism — that 

 there is some authority competent to answer for science, and decree 

 where it shall stop and what it shall examine. There is no such 

 authority ; there never was, and never can be. Religious men can 

 draw up creeds and confessions of faith on which they can agree to 

 stand, and can trace the boundaries of their own beliefs, but a scientific 

 man can do nothing of the kind. In fact, he is bound not to do it. 

 Continued inquiry is to him a condition of progress. It is his duty to 

 treat nothing in the physical field as beyond question. Science, too, 

 does not mean what he believes, but what is, — and therefore he can 

 never tell to-day what he may be compelled by new facts to believe 

 to-morrow. 



Another lesson which I trust theologians have learned from Darwin's 

 career is, the folly and injustice of holding scientific discoverers 

 responsible for what seem the probable moral or social consequences of 

 their discoveries. Half the odium heaped upon Darwin was due to 

 this. It was thought apparently by many alarmed souls that he ought 

 to have kept the result of his enquiries to himself, lest it should 

 unsettle some people's religious faith, or loosen in others the bonds of 

 social obligation. It now appears by the confession of his revilers 

 that, had he done so, he would have committed a great mistake, even 

 from their point of view. They now acknowledge that what they 

 thought were necessary or very probable consequences of his revela- 



